


Sub-Subliminal

by 51stCenturyFox



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-07
Updated: 2011-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-05 13:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/51stCenturyFox/pseuds/51stCenturyFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1969, Torchwood captures another unusual specimen.  </p><p>"Kind of a shame, really. With the big historic news, it'd have been nice to communicate with an alien who could, y'know, communicate. Beyond grunts."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sub-Subliminal

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Doctor Who S6 - The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon
> 
> Beta: neifile7

Jack was tired. Wrung out. Utterly beat. He slumped at his desk and eyed the clock hanging over his typewriter. Only half-two in the afternoon. But he'd been up very early tracking a burly Burflix, one that had drained two young couples on moonlight strolls along the banks of the River Taff. Their contact at the constabulary had taken one look at the wizened human husks and called in Torchwood just after midnight.

He felt an itch at the back of his brain telling him he was forgetting something he ought to do. _Oh! Had Shirley been fed?_ Linda and Charlie were dissecting the Burflix, so that left Jack to handle the Weevil's mealtime. He stood with a sigh and idly wondered if she'd eat a leftover pork chop. Shrugging, he went to the refrigerator, pulled a plate out and headed for the cells.

When he walked into the block, Shirley banged hard on her cell's partition. Jack knew it was shatterproof plastic and more secure than the bars they'd replaced last month, but it still gave him an unsettled feeling to see aliens behind clear partitions. It made the cells seem more like a museum than a jail. He wasn't sure which was worse; he'd done stints on display in both museums and Panopticon prisons, on five different planets and one intergalactic ship. His ex-partner had loved it, though. Exhibitionist. At least he could trust the Weevil not to leave arse prints on the plexiglas.

"Keep your knickers on, Shirley. Food's here." Shirley moaned and pointed at the cell across the aisle. Jack glanced behind him. _What in the ever-loving holy hell?_ He nearly dropped the plate, but caught it as it fell, trapping the cold fried pork chop against his crotch. "And that's what I get for offering you some dietary variety." He looked balefully at Shirley. Sure, she was in a cell, but Torchwood did _her_ laundry.

Shirley shook her head and pointed again.

"What?" _God, there's another alien down here to feed. Who trapped that one?_ Jack wondered to himself. "Right, you're next. Sorry, she has seniority." Jack dangled the chop in front of Shirley's face and slid it into her cell. She shook her head, picked it up and sniffed it, and began to gnaw on the piece of meat.

"Well, I guess you like pork chops," Jack said, rubbing at the stain on his trousers. "Some days they do NOT pay me enough for this- SHIT," Startled, Jack approached the cell across the aisle. "Wow. New here, eh? What brings you by, buddy?" The alien was wearing a black suit and tie with a white shirt that had seen better days. "Sorry, the laundry service isn't that frequent, but if you-" he noticed a sheaf of typed paper attached to a clipboard hanging on the plexiglas and leaned forward to read it.

**` Species: Silence (Silent, singular)  
Diet: None??? Does not consume supplied foodstuffs  
Distinguishing characteristics: Lethal. Memory of its existence completely removed when observer looks away. Do not look away!  
Weapons/skills: Auto-hypnotic suggestion. Block your mind from its influence. Do not free from cell until further study completed. Take one of these mimeographed copies with you after reading and bring it upstairs.` **

At the bottom of the page Jack could see it was dated, `**19 June, 1969**`. Last month. And it was signed. By Jack.

"Huh. How 'bout that." Jack put his hands on his hips.

The Silent spoke. "Let me go."

"Nah, wise to your tricks by now, pal." Jack let his mind default to a favourite distraction or two. Something antithetical to freeing aliens, and a much better use of his subconscious. Even so, his fingers twitched towards his wrist strap almost of their own volition. "No. Not letting you out."

"You're thinking about ssssex." the Silent hissed.

Jack paused, nonplussed. "Are you a mind reader?"

"Harknessss," it replied.

"Well, you _have_ been around for nearly a month. Say, you and me, we haven't...?"

"We have been here for ever. Let me go," the creature intoned.

"Not sure why they call you the Silence and not the Repetitious...ness. But no." Jack heard Shirley's jaws grind at the pork chop bone. "Sure you don't eat? Yeah, no mouth, so. Did I ever tell you I once dated a guy with no-" Jack paused. "Of course I did. Guess your memory's better than mine."

"Let me go."

"Repetition point proved. I've got hypnosis and auto-suggestion resistance training, and it'll stand up to your best efforts as long as I know what you're trying to do. Torchwood One. You know you're a prisoner of Torchwood, right?"

The Silent reared back and loosed a barrage of energy against the clear cell barrier. Jack felt its heat and stepped back, but it had failed to breach the fireproofed material. "That's probably why we replaced the bars. How many times did you have to kill me before we figured that one out?"

"Free me. You will free me."

"Not a chance, buddy." Jack took one of the mimeographs from the clipboard sheaf. "Just so I don't forget what I'm dealing with later on."

Later, he read the sheet sitting on his desk, but he couldn't recall what the Silent described on it looked like. He supposed it didn't matter, since it was in a secure cell, and he didn't plan to let it out.

*

A few days later, when Jack saw the unfamiliar suited alien standing in its cell, he opened the door by punching two buttons on his strap, quickdrew his Webley, aimed, and pumped four bullets into its form. Two head shots, two in the centre of its body mass. The being folded in agony and emitted a hissing shriek as it sank to the floor.

"Whoah." Jack took a deep breath and held it as he approached the corpse. He holstered the still-warm gun and read the mimeographed note on the front of the cell. "Ah. Guess we were supposed to keep you around for further study."

He pulled out a fountain pen, sloppily scrawled a few lines onto the topmost sheet while keeping his eyes on the alien's body, then ripped it down and put it in his pocket. "Kind of a shame, really. With the big historic news, it'd have been nice to communicate with an alien who could, y'know, communicate. Beyond grunts." But he'd absolutely had to kill it. Pity. "No offence, Shirley," Jack called out.

He picked up the creature's wrist and let it drop on the concrete floor. Dead for sure. Jack thought of fetching a wheeled table, but he reckoned he'd forget seeing the thing, the... Silent, as soon as he turned away, even if it was dead. Rather than risk leaving the body to rot in the cell until someone came down again, he grabbed the thing by both wrists and dragged it towards the incinerator room. Shirley whimpered as they passed.

Before Jack shoved the Silent's body into the incinerator, he took the paper out of his pocket and made a quick sketch of its face. Looked something like the painting _The Scream,_ he thought. With a little more proboscis and a lot less mouth to it. He usually liked mouths. There were exceptions.

Back in the Hub's main level, he dated and filed the document he was carrying in the Captured and Neutralised folder and stretched out for a catnap on the new sofa Charlie had brought in; his latest wife had objected to the plaid material. Jack did find it scratchy, but otherwise comfortable. He wriggled a bit at the twinge under his arms; he felt as if he'd lugged a load of bricks this week. Catching a Burflix was a lot of work.

*

Jack adjusted the rabbit ears on the black and white television on the shelf over Linda's desk and sat back with his sandwich to watch the rebroadcast of the Moon landing. He'd never seen the live feed before that week and had watched, rapt along with everyone else, as Neil Armstrong had taken mankind's first step on the lunar surface. He wished he could tell someone that by the time he'd slept through most of the holos shown in Space History 101 at the Time Academy, Luna had been colonised for 3,000 years  In Jack's distant youth, the prospect of watching old-timey astronauts in grainy films had been sort of... ho hum. Especially when he'd just been issued a vortex manipulator and was counting the 428 days until it would be authorised for missions.

"...kill us on sight," the creature hissed on the screen.

 _If I ever see one of ya, I will,_ Jack vowed to himself. He glanced at the waiting stack of filing, took a sip from his bottle of Coca-Cola, and watched the lumbering astronaut plant a wired flag in the dust of the Moon.

 

 

`` **Since 20 July, 1969, Torchwood has logged 327 "Silence" ~~contacts~~ ~~captures~~ kills.**

**There may have been an additional unspecified number of unrecorded engagements with this species.** ********

********

 

********

 

********

 

********


End file.
